Let's, for the moment, assume that we have bred mana plants capable of spreading through the wild by themselves.

I vote we make sure to take as many mana plant seeds with us as we can. Maybe plant some inside the ship since light isn't an issue, culture them and continue to breed for various environments, and continue to spread them wherever we go with the ship. Planting small patches of them repeatedly.

With their ability to self spread, eventually, the plants will grow -everywhere- producing mana all over the planet

The dominance of the Fae on the surface will be assured bye-bye goblin rule!

Earth,fire,wind,and water all come together in perfect balance inside of a Smith's forge, this perfect harmony of elements can rarely be found anywhere else in existence.~Hetros' Mentor

As long as we don't summon any more demons and the goblins never make the connection between us and the plants . . .Also, if it's as aggressive as you suggest, how will we make sure it doesn't strangle or compete with the forests or our own crops?

It isn’t that we don’t want to die; it is only that we don’t want to just die. We want to die for something more. –Hellsing, Khota Hirano

Kalegion wrote:As long as we don't summon any more demons and the goblins never make the connection between us and the plants . . .Also, if it's as aggressive as you suggest, how will we make sure it doesn't strangle or compete with the forests or our own crops?

We specifically mentioned in the previous post "Avoid eco-disaster" with it. Can't be CERTAIN it won't cause ecological disasters -everywhere- we go, but it's no kudzu.

Earth,fire,wind,and water all come together in perfect balance inside of a Smith's forge, this perfect harmony of elements can rarely be found anywhere else in existence.~Hetros' Mentor

Kalegion wrote:As long as we don't summon any more demons and the goblins never make the connection between us and the plants . . .Also, if it's as aggressive as you suggest, how will we make sure it doesn't strangle or compete with the forests or our own crops?

We specifically mentioned in the previous post "Avoid eco-disaster" with it.

Show me where please.

If we alter them for other environments, then they're an invasive species. And if we modify them to be both aggressive and grow and spread quickly enough that they can help generate mana pools, I think they would begin to resemble "kudzu" after a while, though they might not grow vertically.Unless you have a plan to slow or halt their growth after a certain stage?

It isn’t that we don’t want to die; it is only that we don’t want to just die. We want to die for something more. –Hellsing, Khota Hirano

Kalegion, the option was worded that we wanted to avoid an eco disaster, but that doesn't mean it was approved, nor do we actually know the results of what happened. While Hetros's idea would be an interesting one to pursue, I personally see a few drawbacks just based on how I went through it in my head.

1) Not every environment is going to react the same to a species of plants. Where one area may tolerate the growth due to natural predators or what have you keeping it from spreading, other places may not. It would take a considerable amount of time studying the local flora and fauna to determine otherwise, and that's time I don't think we'll have traveling from place to place. Spreading the seeds willy nilly is sure to cause disastrous results.

2) We don't actually know the results of our experiments back home. Yes, we put that we wanted to avoid an ecological disaster, but that might just mean that we failed in our experiment because either the mana plants didn't grow properly, or they began to grow out of control and we had to abort our experiment or risk potentially harming the environment via kudzu-like growth. Until we know if we succeeded or failed, it's too soon to pull out the mana seeds and start trying to populate the world.

3) We do not have a plan to halt their growth should they become uncontrollable.

I'm not a botanist, so I'm sure someone else with more experience in the field could word this more comprehensively than I, but that's pretty much my understanding of the situation. We'll be returning to the colony periodically, so there will be time to return, pick up the seeds, and populate if the results of our experiments were (highly) favorable. For now, however, I feel that this is a move too soon to take.

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend." -Henry David Thoreau

I see no downside to going Johnny Appleseed with these mana plants all over the world...

So what if it starts competing with natural grasses and flowering plants and eventually overtakes them in our travels, I mean, its more mana for us. More mana for the fae race. The world is dead to us, comparably. We cannot function without it. Our golems cannot effectively function without it. We should not fear traveling long distances or staying away from a large elven community. We should able to transverse the world without suffocating from lack of mana.

Encouraging the rise of mana based flora is the way to go, it'll help us in the long run. And could you imagine if the mana plant did become an invasive species? We sprinkle a forest with them one year and we come back to that same forest with an amazingly sustainable mana pool, chock full of glowey plants? There was a time when mana plants and non-mana plants existed side by side (thousands of years ago), its time to revert the world back to the state that was. Saturate the world with mana, spread it all corners of the three worlds once again!

But, of course, spreading them willy nilly is a huge risk since its a gamble if the plants could or could not survive- we could be wasting a ton of seeds.

We should start by cultivating the Sky World islands. Those floating masses of rocks are no doubt some extreme environments in both rain and sun exposure, extreme weather, and lack of oxygen. If our plants can thrive there, they can surely thrive anywhere. We can cover the islands with mana plants, make certain islands Mana Rest Stops.

I thought we wanted uncontrollable, hardy and reproductive mana plants. We had such a tough time cultivating them fast enough to situate our mana needs. We still probably don't have enough mana pool back at home to support some of the oldest and wisest Chelian scholars or allow certain golems to work efficiently. Its good for us! We can cultivate the plants we need separately, and its not like the mana plants are going to fell entire forests- just replace certains plants, like grasses or certain flowers. And what is the worth of non-mana producing grasses and flowers to us?

I say yes. The last environmental disaster drained the world of mana and sent our ancestors fleeing into caves. Its time to put the world back in its former state- full of life sustaining mana. And we should be the ones spearheading it.

EDIT:Also bring some mana drain rats along to protect the plants from bugs

Sonor Val'Illhar'dro wrote:We should start by cultivating the Sky World islands. Those floating masses of rocks are no doubt some extreme environments in both rain and sun exposure, extreme weather, and lack of oxygen. If our plants can thrive there, they can surely thrive anywhere. We can cover the islands with mana plants, make certain islands Mana Rest Stops.

This is actually an idea I can get behind. Not only would the Sky World islands be a controlled and relatively isolated environment, but the idea of "mana way stations" is also appealing.

Idea for mana-cultivated sky islands works in my mind too. It's controlled area, so mana plants won't get out of control so easily if they start to overgrow (of course, wind can bring some seed off the island), and at the same time it could create an expanding pool of mana.Of course, we should first map out any other possibly valuable plants that the mana plant could overthrow on the island, and possibly collect them for further expanding. But still, possibility exists and we can use it. Just need some time for it.

Sonor Val'Illhar'dro wrote:I see no downside to going Johnny Appleseed with these mana plants all over the world...

So what if it starts competing with natural grasses and flowering plants and eventually overtakes them in our travels, I mean, its more mana for us. More mana for the fae race. The world is dead to us, comparably. We cannot function without it. Our golems cannot effectively function without it. We should not fear traveling long distances or staying away from a large elven community. We should able to transverse the world without suffocating from lack of mana.

We also need breathable air.Also, you screw with something as basic as grass and trees, and whole ecosystems will collapse, leaving everything there to starve to death, and any crops of ours would need to compete with mana plants eventually as well.It's not just about planting mana plants as we go along--the vanilla mana plants we could probably control, or even just let it go naturally if they're the same breeds from before the Moonless Age. But mana plants that are designed to win out over local flora would lead to nothing but bad news, unless you have some sort of failsafe for this whole thing.

It isn’t that we don’t want to die; it is only that we don’t want to just die. We want to die for something more. –Hellsing, Khota Hirano

Kalegion wrote:We also need breathable air.Also, you screw with something as basic as grass and trees, and whole ecosystems will collapse, leaving everything there to starve to death, and any crops of ours would need to compete with mana plants eventually as well.It's not just about planting mana plants as we go along--the vanilla mana plants we could probably control, or even just let it go naturally if they're the same breeds from before the Moonless Age. But mana plants that are designed to win out over local flora would lead to nothing but bad news, unless you have some sort of failsafe for this whole thing.

Who said mana plants don't produce oxygen? Who said mana plants are poisonous and unable to replace grasses in terms of fauna dietary needs?

There was a time when mana plants were the norm, covered the world, before they all were nommed by demons. The dokkalfar certainly weren't suffocating up on the Surface, I see no reason why mana plants don't produce mana and oxygen. And do you think Kern is just going to allow the total collapse of the atmosphere in this game? Doubtful.

If it was an issue for our crops, it would've been something we had to deal during the timeskip already. From what I gather, the mana plants grow, they mature and burst open to spread their seeds in the winds. If they were a competitor to our crops, then this random bursting of mature mana plants would've decimated them by now.

Grasses will most likely be replaced, trees probably not. These mana plants aren't vines, they aren't mana trees, all they'll probably do is replace grasses and some flowers. Hell, they probably won't even replace them in its entirety. These mana plants could coexist side by side with preexisting flora. As far the ecological impact? Nothing suggests the plants are necessarily inedible to fauna, so it would simply be the natural progression of things with one new type of grass replacing another. I actually think mana plants NEED tree cover to retain the mana they produce, so I don't see the mana plants overtaking entire forests anytime soon.

If you still concerned about failsafes and limitation procedures, we can start off in controlled environments and at my suggestion, we start by smothering the sky islands with mana plants. Mana plants on mana plants on mana plants. Experiment there, see how it works with the sparse vegetation already present.

But if we want to recreate a land infused with mana again, we'll need to carpet bomb these forests with our durable hardy kudzu like mana plant seeds.

Kalegion wrote:It's not just about planting mana plants as we go along--the vanilla mana plants we could probably control, or even just let it go naturally if they're the same breeds from before the Moonless Age. But mana plants that are designed to win out over local flora would lead to nothing but bad news, unless you have some sort of failsafe for this whole thing.

if you had read the archives thoroughly you would know that the species of mana plant we had available at the time could -not- compete with normal plant life -at all- it only survived in places where all other plant life was extinct, such as around poisonous pools of water.

We deliberately went out of our way to design a mana plant that would flourish without becoming mana kudzu. Basically, it's HARDIER, harder to kill, but these suckers germinate -once- in their entire life cycle. That puts a -serious- road stop in their ability to spread and overtake natural species of flora.

Earth,fire,wind,and water all come together in perfect balance inside of a Smith's forge, this perfect harmony of elements can rarely be found anywhere else in existence.~Hetros' Mentor

ecologocial questions aside, we should make sure we don't leave a trail anyone can follow back to our home. so i suggest we either plant just in hidden spots or (preferably) all over the place, even far off from our actual course. some smaller aircrafts or devices to send the seeds flying on their own would be useful for the latter method. or maybe, if the seeds can survive it, we could feed them to birds we meet on the way to have them spread out.